I demand that Udo Richter may or may not have written...
[snip]
I'm not yet sure how exactly the new shutdown code will look like, but I'm quite sure there will be a way to detect whether VDR is currently interactive (some user is watching) or not (unattended start, timer recording, no activity for x hours, power button pressed but not confirmed). Based on that, a plugin could probably take over the output device and suspend it or show a still. Or softdevice itself could react on this.
It also needs to cope with being shut down by a signal without any possibility of user intervention. Two levels should be available: stop now, and stop when inactive.
This helps init scripts when upgrading a packaged-for-$DISTRIBUTION version of vdr since there's no guarantee that the upgrade won't be scheduled for when nothing is being recorded.